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6.06.2011

Marketing Mondays: Rethinking the Artist’s Statement

Here’s what I hate about artists’ statements: On an 11 x 8½ sheet of paper, the artist writes “Artist Statement” at the top and sticks a couple of short paragraphs of often impenetrable prose toward the top of the page. When you're confronted with it as a reader, what do you typically do? Read the first few lines, skim to the bottom, and then put it down, right? Snore.

This is how statements have “always been done” but I think there’s plenty wrong with the format

Speaking as the editor I was for 20 years, I think there’s a better way to do it. Take, for example, a front of-the-book article in a magazine, typically a one-pager. What gets you to read it?Your eye goes to the title and subtitle, rests on a picture and skims the caption, and then may fall on a call out or pull quote, elements designed to synopsize the text. So before you actually read the text of the article, you have gotten a sense of the story.

Considering the way we read the printed page as just described, or surf the net with a series mouse clicks and flashing images, who in the world is going to give your statement the three or so minutes it takes to plow through a paragraph that may or may not even be plowable?

Though I'm not suggesting you include a pull quote, I think you can take a cue from the magazine page and use the real estate of that 11 by 8½ page a whole lot better:

Think of your statement as a small editorial feature

(Click both text images to see them larger)

Give Your Artist’s Statement a Title

Everyone knows it's an artist's statement. Why not give it a title instead? The title could be the name of series you’re working on, or a phrase or word to describe the work; it might even be a phrase a critic has used to describe it (make sure you attribute it in the text itself).

Include an Image

If one picture is worth a one thousand words—and never has that been truer than in our insta-culture—then for godsake include one. Pick the best image of your best work, or a studio installation shot, or a gallery installation shot, or even a detail of a work that embodies the elements you talk about in the statement. Pick something to show your reader what you do.

Caption it

It might be as simple as the basic info of title, date, medium, dimensions. If it’s a studio view, note the date of the photograph; if it’s a gallery installation, note the gallery and the city it’s in, exhibition title, and date. If it’s a detail, identify it as such.

The Statement Itself

. Is it written in artspeak? No one is going to understand it. (If you’re problematizing expectations and deconstructing antiaesthetic historical precedents, with or without allusions to formalist thinking, take a look at Carol Diehl’s classic Impenetrable Prose from the Whitney Biennial. She’s commenting on critical writing, but too often artists try to emulate that ridiculous prose in an effort to sound more artlike. The message here: Don’t!)

. Is it too long? No matter how well it’s written, no one is going to read it. Write about your work the way you would verbally describe it to someone. Edit it, of course. Prose-ify it a bit if you wish. But keep it readable and keep it short: What you’re doing, why you’re doing it; and if, applicable, how you’re doing it. Boom, boom, boom.

Provide just enough information that the reader will want to engage with you to know more and to see more. (That’s what made Gypsy Rose Lee so famous.) You want to interest a dealer or curator sufficiently to click onto your website (or better: visit your studio), to inspire a critic to visit your show, to tantalize a collector to imagine what your work would like on her wall. Otherwise, they or any other reader will give your statement a once-over and put it down.

The Letterhead

At the top of the sheet provide a letterhead—the same one that’s on the first page of your resume, on your price list, and on your correspondence. Your name is on this letterhead, of course, along with your contact info: e address, land line, cell, website, and perhaps your studio address. Create a template from existing fonts in Word and use it for everything you print out. Yes, it’s businesslike; you are a business of one. The people you are dealing with—dealers, museums, consultants, for instance—are also businesses. If you prefer to make your letterhead a “letterfoot,” that’s fine. Just be consistent about it.

When I send a new statement to a gallery I'm working with, I just leave space at the spot, top or bottom, where they put their gallery letterhead/foot.

31 comments:

Joanne: including a photo with the statement is a fantastic idea! Brilliant.

I was in a gallery the other day to see the current show. The artist's statement about the work was posted on the wall among the paintings, and I was immediately struck by its simplicity, clarity, and brevity. In a few well-written sentences, the artist had provided just enough information to pull me into the work. When I mentioned this to the gallery director, she laughed a bit and said the first version was so densely written with technical and theoretical jargon, that she couldn't understand any of it. She asked the artist for a re-write, and got positive results.

I guess the moral of the story here is that it's good to have a second pair of eyes on the statement before it gets published.

It is often a struggle to write a coherent statement because we think we are expected to include a string of insightful comments, instead of letting the work speak for itself. You are absolutely correct that short and sweet (well, at least clear) is far better than a rambling statement filled with jargon. I've been including a small image along with my statement for a couple of years (but certainly a larger image is even better).

And Pam-you include another terrific idea--get someone who you trust to look at the statement before you publish it......I might just take you up on that!

Hi Joanne,This is a great post! I have many of my senior and grad students write artist statements, and emphasize three things:

* Minimize the art-speak: If you can't write about your work conversationally then my assumption is that (a) you don't really have anything to say, or (b) you don't fully understand your work well enough to describe it. (Plus, overuse of art-speak often comes across as an amateur who's showing off terminology s/he just discovered)* An artist statement should ideally describe the work well enough that a person could guess with reasonable accuracy which work in a group show goes with the statement* The statement should be interesting enough to make someone want to seek out the work and learn more

I'm definitely going to point people to this post as well, as there are some great ideas here.

Bravo! We are no longer in the world of Henry James where it takes 3 paragraphs to make a simple statement (and I love HJ) -- today's mind and time constraints force a quicker, more accurate distillation. Now where did I put my artist's statement . . . !

Thanks so much for this post. It's exactly the information I needed as I am trying to transition from selling via small solo shows to building good relationships with galleries. I'm preparing portfolios to be sent out and the fancy art speak just has never seemed to ring true for me or my work so I had been stalling on writing a statement. This just took all the stress out that for me!

David,To respond to your anti-statement stance--and you certainly are welcome to that point of view--I would second Pam Farrell's comment and add this: Don't expect that your work will speak for itself. Everyone sees something different. If you want your audience to know about your work from your point of view, you need that statement.

Also, you dealer needs your statement for a variety of reasons: to help her talk about your work with a collector or potential collector, to write a press release, to include in the packets of into she sends to consultants, curators, others. It's your voice talking about your work when you are not there to talk about it in person.

Dana asks if we need a different statement for each series (or body of work).

Each time I create a new series, I prepare a new statement. It's new work; I have new things to say about it. This is particularly important for the dealers I work with. Some have been showing and selling my work for well over a decade. As my work changes, they need to be able to refer to my comments as they present the work to their clients. (Of course we talk about it, too, but the statement give them a precis of my thinking about the work.)

I agree with everything you said. I have always thought the artist statement was written more for the artist than the reader. I am definitely going to create a new artist statement with the ideas you noted. Thank you.

I agree with the lone dissenter here. I don't believe it is the artist's job to tell people what they should see or feel when they look at a work of art. The work itself should do the talking:) The possiblity that a viewer might be puzzled by it or not understand it should be accepted as one of many possible responses. (In other words, it should succeed or fail on its own terms.) Many successful artists have said as much over the years. If statements are so important why don't art schools teach artists how to write them? My own very recent art education implied that statements were necessary in today's art world but no class time was actually spent on how to write one.

LM, Your art school did you a disservice by not helping you with an artist statement. Many schools now offer Professional Practices courses--much needed and entirely appropriate, expecially now that the financial stakes for artists are so high--in which the artist statement is addressed.

It is not the artist's job to tell a viewer what they should see or think, but the artist loses a valuable opportunity by not presenting the work in her/his own words--the what and the why. The statement opens the door to an understanding of the artist's oeuvre, or to a particular series, or even to a specific work. (If it's poorly written, the statement may just muddy the waters.)

It's another way to answer the question, "What do you do?" You wouldn't remain mute in a gallery if someone asked you, right? The statement is the written equivalent. But it is your right to opt out of that kind of clarification.

Thanks for yor response Joanne! Answering a viewer's questions about the work is another thing altogether; they have already seen the work and want more information, something I'd be only too happy to provide. The written "statement", on the other hand, presupposes what those questions might be and puts the cart before the horse so to speak. I actually love reading interviews with artists because what they are saying is a response to the response of someone else who has experienced the work already. Again, I think the art should start the conversation, not the artist's own thoughts about the art. As for statement writing being taught in schools, I have read so many bad ones by recent MFA grads that I have to wonder:)!

Just forwarded this to other Mason Gross (Rutgers/New Brunswick, NJ) undergrad students like me via my Facebook page... I hate the Holier Than Thou artist statements I've read. Statements should be succinct and pretty. :) Thank you.

THANK YOU. I was struggling with my very first artist's statement for my very first show. I am largely self-taught, so never had a course or lecture on marketing art/statements/etc. This gave me the direction I needed. Left a small donation.

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